Wednesday Nov. 22, 2023
Well...not a great start of our trip! Our plane had a fuel leak. They said it would take about an hour to fix. At least they let us get off the plane. Most people had connections in Denver. Our first flight we booked only had a 45 minute layover from Denver to Munich. To risky so Michael changed it to the only other option a 7 hour layover, which worked out really well. It didn't take that long to fix and we were on our way. We arrived in Denver about 1:00 pm we ate lunch and waited for our flight to Munich that left at 8:20 pm for a 9 hour flight.
Thursday Nov. 23, 2023
Happy Thanksgiving!
We landed in Munich about 1:30 p.m. we checked into our hotel and went to the Erding spa in Erding Germany for the evening and ate dinner there. Such a great way to relax after a long couple of days of flying. Tomorrow we start our road trip to Austria about a 3 1/2 hour drive.
Friday Nov. 24, 2023
I thought for sure since we were still on our time we'd get up early! Nope...we woke up right before 11:00. Check out time is noon. We ate then headed to Austria. We'll be there for two days.
It took about 4 hours. We checked into our hotel, ate dinner then took the Ubahn to St. Stephens Cathedral. We walked around but it was late so a lot of the stores were closed but it was beautiful!
We ate dinner in the hotel restaurant.
Saturday Nov. 25, 2023
We took the Ubahn again and went to both Christmas Markets one by St. Charles church and the other at the Rathaus. We ate lunch at a small restaurant near St. Charles. It started to snow on and off. It was so pretty. We bought a couple pastries and ate them when we got back to the hotel. So yummy!! It gets dark at around 4pm so after a bit we headed back and ate dinner at the hotel.
When we were in Austria once before we got to watch them perform. So very cool. They are beautiful!
St. Charles Christmas Market
Vienna Opera House
Apple Strudel so good!
Sunday Nov. 26, 2023
We slept in then headed to Budapest Hungary for 2 days. It took about 6 hours. We checked into our hotel and ate dinner. We walked over to the St. Stephen's Christmas Market. It took about 22 minute to get there from our hotel. It was cold but so pretty.
Cool view from our hotel
Monday Nov. 27, 2023
We ate breakfast at the McDonalds across the street since it was so close and easy. We took the metro to the Vorosmarty Christmas Market. We only took it one stop. The Hungarian language is very difficult and the money is super confusing. It's hard if you have no concept of the value of it like the Euro. We even tried the app that converts. Impossible! We ended up walking all over town looking for the right market. We ended up across the river so we decided to venture on to the Chain Bridge and the Parliament building, since we wanted to go there anyway. It was beautiful. We'd been before but I wanted to go again. We eventually found the market. We got a few ornaments and had lunch. Hungarian Goulash of course. It was yummy especially on a cold day. We walked around the Christmas Market then headed back to the Marriott, stopping at the New York Cafe on the way since it was right down the street from the Marriott. The last time we were in Budapest we stayed at this hotel. It was called "The Boscolo." The New York Cafe is inside the hotel. It's so beautiful! It's still there but somebody else bought it and it's now called "The Anantara New York Palace Budapest." We went to the bakery next to our hotel. We went to the mall and walked around. We were tired and went to bed about 10 pm. Tomorrow we head to Prague for two days.
View from our hotel window.
Chain Bridge
New York Cafe'
Chain Bridge at night
Parliament Building 
Tuesday Nov. 28, 2023
Ate breakfast at McDonalds again since it's so convenient. We checked out of the hotel and started our road trip to Prague about 4 hours. We've decided we drive way to much. I love road trips but we need to spend more time in less places and slow it down a bit. It's been super fun though. We just travel hard. We've been pretty lucky driving today. It started to rain then there was supposed to be snow. The rain stopped and it hasn't snowed yet. We ended up on a good road with not a lot of traffic.
We managed to get a "Vignette" for Slovakia and now, Czech Republic. It's a tax, kinda like tolls for the roads. They will fine you big time if you don't have one. We were only in Slovakia for about 15 minutes driving through but just like the US, Chicago, New York everywhere else we've lived they gotta collect those taxes! When we had about an hour left it started to snow. It's so pretty but I don't care to drive in it. It wasn't to bad. We arrived and checked into the hotel.
The parking garage was quite the challenge. It was not easy to get into especially in snowy weather! We were so tired we didn't want to venture out and just ate in the hotel. I had a stuffed chicken breast with pea gnocchi with pickled beetroot and mustard seed. Sounded kind of weird but it was super good. We shared a chocolate cake and vanilla ice cream. Hopefully we'll wake up to snow but not snowing since we'll be outside most of the day tomorrow. It would be so pretty especially in Prague.
Wednesday Nov. 29, 2023
We took a taxi from the hotel to the Old Town. We stopped and got pastries and hot chocolate. We walked around the markets for a bit and also saw the "Column of books" at the Prague Library.
We walked over to the Charles Bridge then ate at the restaurant right next to the bridge., "U Tri Pstrosu" It was traditional Czech food. We walked back over the Charles Bridge to take a tour of the Klementinum Library. We were very lucky to get the last two tickets! I wanted to really see the library the last time we were here but weren't able to find it then. I'm so excited but it's at 7:15 pm and it's only 5 pm. It's cold out so we went right across the street to Starbucks and got a hot chocolate and sat very cozy by the window till it was time. That library is so beautiful!
We took a taxi back to the hotel after walking around the Christmas Market for a bit. We ate a small dinner at the hotel. Tomorrow we head to Leipzig Germany.
"Column of Books"
Klementinum Library
Lots of stairs!
Good-Bye Beautiful Prague!
We got up early and headed to Leipzig Germany. Thought we'd check out a small town we haven't seen in Germany before. We are just there overnight. From what I read you can visit it in a day.
Once we went through customs in Germany again it was back to no speed limits in most areas. Yeah! There are speed limits but most of the time you can just GO!
We arrived in Leipzig about 1:30 pm. We couldn't check in the hotel yet so we drove to the "Battle of the Nations Monument."
It commemorates the battle of 1813 that involved forces all over Europe, called the Battle of Nations. With half a million soldiers and 100,000 casualties, it was the largest battle in European history until WW1.
Archangel Michael straddles the main door, inside large soldiers in front of death masks with heads bowed in honor of those who died.
We went back and checked into our hotel. It started to snow so pretty but cold. We walked to the train station then to the old town Christmas Market. It's huge and so pretty. We ate in a cute place at the market. We walked over to St. Nicholas church but it was locked.
In the 1980's the church hosted weekly pray meetings for peace. These turned political marking St. Nicholas a staging ground for the peaceful revolution that ultimately toppled the communist regime. A column in the church square celebrates the churches contribution to German freedom. Because of the peaceful revolution eventually the wall in Berlin came down. It was cold so we decided to go back to the hotel.
Train Station
Column in the church square that contributed to the fall of the communist regime and eventually the fall of the wall in Berlin.
Hotel window view
Friday Dec. 1, 2023
Drove over to St. Thomas church. This was the hometown (Leipzig, Germany) of the composer Johann Sebastian Bach. He was the organist and choirmaster at the church for 30 years for the boys choir. His tomb is inside the church.
We then headed to Nuremberg Germany. It snowed last night more. It's so beautiful out! We were tired and I had a bit of a scratchy throat. It was already dark plus cold and wet out so we decided to relax at the hotel and eat at the restaurant here. We'll have a full day tomorrow in Nuremberg.
Saturday Dec. 2, 2023
Headed outside to downtown Nuremberg. We walked around for a couple hours. It was lightly snowing and cold!! We went to a couple of churches (Mostly to get warm) well kind of the churches aren't exactly warm. We ate lunch at the "King's Arms" a British pub. It was cozy and warm and we watched a soccer game (football.) We went back to the hotel room for awhile to get warm. We went back to see the Christmas Market at night. Beautiful! It's 24 degrees burrr! We ate dinner in the hotel. Tomorrow off to Munich for the last four days.
Lorenzkirche
This church tells the story of Christian belief in art and architecture, light, sound and words. For centuries in the midst of this city people have found an oasis of calm and time to admire the treasures of this church.
"Coffee on wheels"
Ate lunch in a pub. Finally got a beer size Diet Coke!
This was so much prettier in person with a light dusting of snow!!
Drove to Munich. It only took an hour and 1/2. It snowed a ton here. We missed it the night before. I guess they closed the airport and some roads. We were lucky to have barely missed it driving. I love it, it's so pretty! The weather is very cold but sunny once we got here.
We walked over and got subway for lunch. Germany pretty much shuts down on Sundays plus there was a lot of snow and that's about all that was open. We ate dinner at the Westin hotel across the street. We've eaten there before. 8am tomorrow morning it's supposed to be 12 degrees. We will probably sleep in no rush till it warms up a tiny bit. Of course we'll hit Marienplatz for shopping and the Christmas Market.
Our hotel in Munich
Whoops forgot I put that water outside last night!
Monday Dec. 4, 2023
It was cold last night and the bed was cozy we slept in then caught the Ubahn to downtown Marienplatz. We walked all over and checked out the Christmas Market. We ate lunch at our favorite place in Munich "Durnbrau". We walked over to Odenplatzto the Christmas Market at the Residenz. We got some pastries and drinks then headed back to the hotel on the Ubahn. Later we went back to the Westin for dinner again. (Our hotel doesn't have a restaurant in it. I forgot about that one. (We've stayed here before) I'm still trying really hard to get a cold but I've been downing the zinc and Vit. C. I feel fine but I want to knock it out before we fly home on Thursday. We went to the pharmacy next door to our hotel and stocked up on cough syrup, zinc, and lemon tea plus a couple masks just in case for the flight home!
They no longer have their potato soup! That was sad to hear it was my favorite!
Odenplatz
Residenz Christmas Market
Tuesday Dec. 5, 2023
We decided to take a trip to Augsburg, Germany it's only about an hour away. Looks like a cool little town we haven't visited yet. We've been to most of the day trips around Munich and we wanted to see something new.
It actually took only an hour. We walked around through the Christmas Market. We got hot chocolate and pastries then headed back to Munich.
Wednesday Dec. 6, 2023
Slept in and headed to the spa in Erding for the day. We ate dinner there.
Thursday Dec. 7, 2023
Headed to the airport and flew from Munich to Denver then on to St. George. Good to be home especially to see our puppy!
